


The Most Important Promise

by buckythevampireslayer



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 22:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16463426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckythevampireslayer/pseuds/buckythevampireslayer
Summary: Some times that Archie cried, and Fred held him





	The Most Important Promise

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much just self indulgent Andrews family feelings tbh
> 
> Trigger warnings:  
> A couple of the sections have a rape and csa trigger warning, for mentions of grundy, so be careful  
> One section features the r-word used a few times  
> One section has a racism trigger warning
> 
> My version of the Andrews family is Samoan because fuck the cw, which is why it mentions them dealing with racism. In my mind, Fred is played by [Robbie Magasiva](http://baskino.me/uploads/images/2017/173/lndf935.jpg)

Archibald Frederick Andrews is two minutes old, and Fred is handed his wailing son for the first time. It’s everything he had hoped. Mary’s slumped back in the bed, eyes closed, but there’s a genuine smile on her face as the crying slows, quiets as Fred gently rocks the baby. 

In that instant, he swears nothing is ever going to hurt his son. 

* * *

Archie is four years old, and whenever he’s not in preschool or with Jughead and Betty, he’s here, on site with Fred. He loves following him around the site, telling anyone who will listen that that’s his dad. The guys on the crew think it’s cute, thankfully, and FP always laughs, tells Archie  _yeah, I know, and he’s a really cool dad._

Usually, he only gets to be on site when Fred is doing office work, or there’s a guarantee that nothing dangerous is happening today, but Mary has work and preschool is cancelled due to a chicken pox outbreak and Alice Cooper already has to drag one kid of her own to the Register. So Archie is at the site, sitting in the trailer Fred and FP use for an office, tiny legs dangling off the edge of his chair while he kicks them impatiently. 

The thing is, he’s not good at sitting still. Fred knows this about his son. He knows this, and he definitely should have known better than to try and have him sit in the office all day with nothing to do while he balanced the books. The door opens and closes, and when he looks up, expecting to see FP walking in, the trailer is empty. He swears quietly, jumping up to go wrangle his energetic four year old for the dozenth time today. 

He’s barely out the door before he hears crying, and his heart drops straight through his stomach, through the ground, right to the center of the Earth as he runs towards the sound. Archie is on the ground, sobbing, FP kneeling next to him, and Fred realizes with a start that he’s bleeding, badly, from his forehead. 

He pushes past the rest of the crew, goes down on his knees to scoop Archie up, pulling him in close. Archie, still crying, presses his face into his dad’s shoulder as he stands, carrying him towards the car. 

Twelve stitches later and the urgent care doctor is reassuring Fred that Archie will be fine, but he’ll have one hell of a scar between his eyebrows now. He runs a hand over his son’s hair, breathing a sigh of relief. The sobbing has stopped, for the most part, but he’s still sniffling every once in a while. 

The next time Archie comes to work with Fred, the guys gift him with his very own hard hat. He’s never seen his son smile so wide. 

* * *

Archie is seven years old, and he’s sitting in a chair between Fred and Mary, Ms. Gritbrach across from the three of them, quietly explaining that Archie isn’t meeting the standards of reading comprehension that he should be at his age. It would be for the best, she says, if he stays back. It gives him a chance to catch up, and he’ll be better off for it. She knows he’s a smart kid, knows he has the potential, but he just needs a little more help than he’s getting right now. 

Archie is quiet the whole way home. They barely make it through the door before Fred can hear him sniffling, and when he looks back, his head is bowed, trying and failing to hide the tears starting to fall. 

Fred kneels in front of him, arms wrapping around his son. Archie moves, the same way he always does when he cries, presses his face against his dad’s shoulder as he starts to shake from the sobs. 

“I’m sorry I’m stupid...” 

Fred’s heart breaks. When he looks up at Mary, he can see the same expression on her face. “You are not stupid, Archie. Lots of people struggle with reading, that doesn’t make you stupid,” she says, her voice steady and allowing no room for argument. She’s good at that, using that firm voice, in a way that Fred never has been. 

Archie sniffles again, nods against his shoulder. Fred continues to run a hand over his back, muttering soothingly against the top of his head. 

Later, he and Mary find out that Betty Cooper has been tutoring Archie, and by the time the end of the year comes, he’s meeting the benchmark for reading comprehension. Mary takes him in that summer, has him tested, because it can run in families, and while it had never been diagnosed, the Andrews having neither the time or the money for it, it was no secret that Oscar was dyslexic. 

The results come back just as they had expected them to. Third grade, there’s a better system in place, Mary Andrews sweeping into the school in all her NYU law school graduate glory, and insists on her son getting the help he needs. Betty still helps him, and he gets help from the school, and from his parents, and Fred thinks it might be okay. 

* * *

Archie is nine years old, and when he comes home from school, he’s fuming, and he throws his backpack as hard as he can, not caring when it hits the table next to the stairs and knocks everything over. Fred’s up off the couch in a second, eyebrows flying up. “Hey! What was that about?”

“Nothing. Leave me alone.” 

“Archie, you can talk to me or not, but you have to pick that up.” Archie makes a choked, frustrated noise, and Fred can see the start of tears in his eyes. “Arch. What was that about?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” But the tears he’s trying to furiously wipe away say otherwise, and Fred reaches for him, places a hand against his shoulder, wrapped around the back of his neck. It only takes a second before Archie surges forwards, face pressed to Fred’s chest while he cries. They stand like that for god knows how long, and Fred runs his hand over the back of Archie’s head, soothing. 

“It’s retarded...”

Fred stiffens up, pulls out of the hug to look down at him. “What have I told you about words like that?”

“Well, why shouldn’t I be allowed to use it? Everyone else at school says it.”

“Just because everyone else at school says it doesn’t mean you should. You’re better than that.” 

“Why does it matter if I use it, they’re all saying it about  _me_!” Fred’s eyes close, and he breathes heavily through his nose. Archie doesn’t seem to notice, and he continues, the choked sound of his voice making it obvious that he’s still crying. “They say that’s what the extra help means. I’m in retard classes cause I can’t read.” 

Fred opens his eyes slowly, reaches down to brush tears off his son’s cheek. “Archie. You are not retarded. You are not stupid. And anyone who says you are clearly doesn’t know you and doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” It’s not enough, he knows it’s not enough, but he’s so lost on what to say. He can’t help but feel like he’s failed him, somehow, by not being able to prevent this. “Do you want to tell me who said it?”

Archie shakes his head. After a moment, Fred nods, accepting it. He was nine years old once, knows the indescribable need to not be a snitch. He brushes a hand through Archie’s hair one last time, smiling when it makes him close his eyes and sniff again. It’s not better, but it’s something.  

* * *

Archie is ten years old, and Fred is woken up by the sound of someone knocking on his front door at six in the morning. He opens it, bleary-eyed, to see Alice Cooper standing there, and sighs heavily. It’s too early in the morning for this, and he’s about to close the door again when she sticks her hand out, stopping him. He shouldn’t be surprised by that; they were friends all through school, she knows him well enough to predict things like this. 

“Come outside.” She glances over his shoulder, her mouth pressing into a thin line. “Good morning, Archie. I just need to talk to your father for a second, but you should stay inside.” 

That’s enough to catch Fred’s attention, and he follows Alice out of the door, only stopping when he sees his driveway. More than the driveway, his garage.  **DOGS**  and  **GET OUT**  are spray painted along it, the driveway is littered with toilet paper and garbage, and the lights on the front of the garage have been smashed at some point during the night. 

He’s suddenly filled with relief that she told Archie to stay inside. This hasn’t happened in years, not since he was a toddler and too young to notice, and Fred had been starting to hope that maybe he wouldn’t have to protect his son from this, from the small town racism that’s been such a constant presence in his own life. That maybe people were finally done slinging words like  _dog_  and  _mutt_  at the Andrews family, done telling them to  _go back where they belong_. 

Clearly, he was wrong. 

“Dad?” Fred curses internally, wondering why in the hell his son can never just do what he’s told. When he turns, Archie’s eyebrows are scrunched together, distorting the scar that he got at the construction site when he was four—something else Fred hadn’t been able to protect him from—and he’s staring at the scene in disbelief. There are tears starting to well up in his eyes, and Fred moves to him, pulling him into a hug gently. 

“Hey, it’s alright. We can get it cleaned up, I’ll call FP and a couple of the guys and it’ll be fixed in no time,” he says quietly. Archie just shakes his head, and Fred feels a pang of sympathy. Archie’s never had to  _actually_  see this before, not the way that Fred has, and he doesn’t know how to handle it. It’s not fair, he thinks, that his ten year old should have to know that there are people in this town who hate his family purely because of where they’re from. He’s not old enough yet to understand the gossip that flies around about Mary and her supposed cheating, about him not being Archie’s real dad, but he’s old enough to understand what this is when he sees it. It’s a threat, and hate speech. It’s the kids in his class who tell him he’s in retard classes, but even more than that. 

He should have known that trying to shield your kid from this kind of reality doesn’t work in the long run, but Fred has always been an optimist, always wants to believe the best of people. He holds his son while he cries, and Alice Cooper watches on, her face grim, just like it always was when this happened to his garage when they were kids. 

It happens four more times before Archie starts fifth grade that fall. The last time, a muggy morning in August, is the first time he doesn’t cry when he follows Fred outside, just looks at the scene with eyes that are much harder than they were six months ago. The sight of it breaks Fred’s heart more than the vandalism ever could. 

* * *

Archie is thirteen years old, and he wakes up to a house that is missing one person. 

He doesn’t know, at first. He comes downstairs, the same as he always does, dressed for school and paying no attention to anything as he slips into his seat at the dining room table. 

_He doesn’t know._  Fred doesn’t know how to tell him, either, just sits there in silence, watching his son grab toast and peanut butter, no cares in the world. It’s a normal day—he’s going to eat breakfast, go to junior high, hopefully avoid getting into a fight because someone called Jughead a name or tugged on Betty’s ponytail or whatever horrible thing they’re doing today. 

The fights are more common now. They’ve always happened, ever since first grade when Archie had tackled Jason Blossom, who had a year and 20 pounds on him, for saying Jughead was Southside scum. But in the last year, he’s watched Archie’s temper get increasingly worse, watched his impulsiveness increase, and he’s praying to god that today is going to be one of the rare good days. 

If he tells him, he knows that it won’t be. If he tells him, he’s going to get into a fight at school, or he’s going to leave the house for the rest of the week again, parked out in Jughead’s bedroom and leaving FP to call Fred—the awkward, stilted calls where neither of them know what to say, because they’re not partners anymore, and certainly not friends, but FP can’t just kick his kid out because of that and he’s not about to just let Fred suffer through wondering where the hell Archie is. 

Archie finally looks up at him, squinting when he sees the pensive look on his face. “Where’s mom?”

And Fred sighs, puts his elbows on the table so he can rest his face in his hands. When he looks back up, Archie has tears in his eyes. He doesn’t need to say it—Archie already knows, just from that one action. He moves around the table and pulls him into a hug, letting him cry against his chest. He’s going to need to do this even more now, he realizes. Before, Mary had been there to comfort Archie just as often as him, but now he’s all that he has. 

He tells him that he doesn’t need to go to school that day. When he goes back after the weekend, he makes it one period before getting into a fight with someone. The second the phone rings, Fred realizes that he’s been expecting it.

* * *

Archie is fifteen years old, and he is a  _child_. That’s all Fred can think, the whole night. He’s just a  _kid_. The night goes by in flashes, moments of action that he can’t fully piece together into a true narrative of the evening afterwards. It should scare him, and it does, but not as much as everything else did that night. 

Alice popping up at the drive-in with an “It’s about the kids”— _he’s just a child_ —walking into the music room, knowing full well what they’re going to see, and feeling his blood run cold anyways— _he’s just a child_ —listening to the fight, hearing the things Archie says about himself— _he’s just a child_ —that  **woman**  offering to leave town and never come back— _he’s just a_ ** _child_**. 

Their drive home is silent, but it’s not an angry silence. He’s just completely lost on what to say. He had never thought that he was going to have to deal with something like this. He’s never felt this helpless before; he’s watched his father and little brother die, watched his marriage fall apart before his eyes, but this? This is a million times worse than any of that. The look in Archie’s eyes when he called himself  _stupid, selfish_ —he will do anything to keep that look away. 

He gets out of the truck, and it only takes a second for him to realize that Archie is still sitting in it, crying. And still, he has no idea what he’s supposed to say. “You are not... those things you said,” he says finally, voice quiet. “You’re not stupid. This wasn’t your fault.” 

Archie is out of the truck and moving into his arms, face pressed against Fred’s shoulder as his whole body shakes with the force of the sobbing. Fred just stands there, in the driveway, holds him for what feels like hours. Holds his son, his baby boy, who is suddenly so much older than he should be at his fifteen years, and he’s crying too. 

He’s crying because he failed at the one promise he made to his son, the one promise that matters. He’s failed to protect him, and this time, they’re not going to be able to get back to how things were. The world has shifted, irreversibly, for both of them. It’s become a darker place. He clutches Archie tighter, pulls him in closer in their driveway, as if that will help chase some of those demons away. 

* * *

Archie is still fifteen years old, and they’re sitting in the stark white of a hospital room. Archie hasn’t moved since he woke up—and the nurses say it’s actually been much longer than that, which doesn’t surprise him. He’s still sitting in the chair at the side of Fred’s bed, one hand gripping his tightly, leg anxiously bouncing in the way that Archie’s always had. 

It always used to drive him crazy. Right now, it makes him want to cry tears of joy, because it’s proof that his son wasn’t hurt, that he’s alive, they’re  _both_  alive. And if Archie is okay, then taking that bullet was worth it. For once, he’s living up to the promise that he made all those years ago, to protect Archie from anything that could harm him. 

The empty look in Archie’s eyes tells him that he hasn’t, though. He protected him from the bullet, but not from this kind of pain, a kind that goes so much deeper than his wound does. 

Archie doesn’t cry when he’s awake, but he knows that he does when he’s asleep—or when he thinks that he’s asleep. This time it sounds worse, and Fred forces his tired eyes open, squeezes Archie’s hand just a bit tighter. His son looks up at him, shocked, tears still coming freely. 

It takes some shuffling, and one movement sends a sharp pain, worse than anything he’s ever felt, shooting up his side, but they manage to move him enough that Archie can climb into the bed next to him like he did as a little kid, curl against his side as he sobs openly into his shoulder. Fred keeps his arms wrapped tight around him, lets him cry. 

His nurse isn’t pleased when she finds them like that the next morning, Archie still curled around him, sleeping for the first time since Fred was admitted. 

He’ll take the wrath of his nurse if it means he can hold his son. 

* * *

Archie is sixteen years old, and sometimes he still looks so  _young_. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that Archie’s a kid, they’re  _all_  kids who have been forced to grow up far too much far too early. But there are times when it peeks through, when he sees his son’s face open and vulnerable, curled in on himself on the couch, knees pulled up to his chest. Fred doesn’t have the heart to tell him to keep his feet off the furniture when he looks like that (he’s never been much of a stickler with that rule anyway; they both know that he’s a pushover when it comes to Archie). 

“What was it like the first time you had sex?” Archie’s question seems to come out of nowhere, and Fred is so startled that he can’t reply for a long while. “Dad? Did you—”

“I heard you, Arch, yeah.” He settles onto the couch slowly, wincing when it tugs at his wound that he wishes would heal faster. “I was seventeen. It was in my bedroom, the summer before senior year.” Only two years older than Archie had been, but those two years seem like eons. “It was... a disaster. Neither one of us knew what we were doing and we laughed the whole time. But it was good.” 

Archie is clearly crying when he finishes, and Fred watches him nod slowly. “We were in her car,” he says softly. “We were making out and she went for my fly and I told her I wasn’t sure but she said that was just the nerves talking, and I was so mature, and I figured she was right so I went along with it. It felt weird.” 

Fred’s trying to keep his breathing under control. He’s never had a temper, that was more Mary’s department than his, but he swears he can see red. He’s never wished death on someone before, but he finds himself thinking that he’s glad the Black Hood killed that woman. She’s probably lucky for it, too, because at least he finished it quickly. Fred would have made sure that she hurt. 

That thought terrifies him. 

“My first time was rape.” Archie’s voice is barely above a whisper, and that one word is enough to drag Fred back from the dark place he’s been going in his mind. He’s been trying so hard to avoid calling it that, but he knew. He’s been lying to himself saying it was anything else. “She raped me.” 

Fred slides closer to him, and Archie leans in, falling halfway into his lap as he sobs. Fred just grips him, openly crying. There’s no point in hiding it. 

No parenting books prepare you for this. There’s not a guide on what to do when you’re holding your sobbing sixteen year old son after he’s been raped. All he can do is hold onto him, hold his boy as close as possible, while they both cry. “We’re going to figure this out, Arch,” he promises. “Whatever it takes, I’m going to help you. I promise.” 

He broke the biggest promise he made to his son, by letting this happen at all. This one, he won’t break. He can’t. 

* * *

Archie is still sixteen years old, and he’s sitting in the interrogation room at the sheriff’s station, anxiously bouncing his leg and wringing his hands. Fred is on the other side of the one-way glass, yelling at Minetta. “You have to let me in to see my son!” 

“Technically, I don’t need to let anyone other than his lawyer see him. You’re lucky I let you come back here at all, Mr. Andrews. Your son is a killer. He shouldn’t be allowed to see anyone.” Fred wants to punch him in his smug, Lodge-loving face. This never would have happened with Tom. 

“Well then it’s a good thing his lawyer is here.” Mary glides into the room, all power and grace and fiery red hair, and Fred has never felt more in love in his life. Mary has always known how to command a room, and that’s exactly what she’s doing now, setting her briefcase down on the table in front of Minetta with a level of power that he could never hope to achieve. “And if you don’t want things going south for your sheriff’s department  _very quickly_ , I suggest you let my client see his father.” 

Minetta begrudgingly lets him into the next room, and hangs back with Mary. Fred smirks slightly to himself, already knowing that Minneta’s about to get chewed out on a level that he can’t even imagine. No one is ever prepared for Mary Andrews. 

Archie jumps up when he sees Fred walk in, the movement jerking to a stop when his cuffs catch on the bar on the table. Fred’s heart breaks seeing him there, chained to a table like a criminal. Like an animal. 

“Dad—dad, you have to know I didn’t do this, please—” Archie’s speaking frantically, a sob in the back of his throat as he does, and Fred moves over to him, wraps his arms around him. 

“Of course I know that, Archie.” Archie may have spent the last several months careening down a path that left Fred feeling helpless, but murder is never something he’s thought his son could be capable of. Archie lets out a grateful sob against his shoulder, nods. Of course. “Your mother is in the other room. You didn’t say anything, right?” 

“My mom’s the best lawyer in Chicago, I know not to say anything before my attorney gets here.” Archie actually manages a smile, and Fred returns it. The door opens behind them again, and Minetta steps in. 

“Alright, Andrews. I let you see your son, now you need to  _go_. This is an active murder investigation, and you can’t be here.” 

Fred claps Archie on the shoulder one last time before pushing himself up and walking back out the door. Mary is waiting for him on the other side, and she nods at him, no smile on her face but a familiar glint in her eye. He’s missed seeing that look from across the dinner table. 

“You go home. I’ve got things handled here.” He didn’t even know how much he needed to hear those words from someone. It’s been three years since she’s said that to him, and he’s missed that, too, missed the feeling of having a partner in all of this instead of needing to shoulder all the parenting duties himself. 

And she’s  _Mary_. Of course she has things handled. He doesn’t need to worry. For once in his life, he doesn't need to worry.


End file.
